Maybe It Tastes Better at Closing Time

Puffed-up press releases are like a drunk in a bar telling you how hot you are- sure, the source is the suspect, but you still want to believe the hype. Heading to Bar-B-Cutie (5710 Rufe Snow Dr., North Richland Hills), the newest outpost of the Tennessee style barbeque chain, super-hot Chow, Baby hoped it really was about to feast on “The World’s Best Barbeque Since 1950!” and that this location would resemble the press-packet photo of the original shacky-cool Nashville drive-up, complete with cutie car-hops. The sobering truth: Bar-B-Cutie is just another stupid suburban fast-food hut, complete with whimsical olde-tyme adverts, zombie eyed teenage counterworkers, and 99.5 The WOLF played way too loud. (Chow, Baby is working on a motto for The WOLF: “We Only Like Flaccidboringstupidsongs,” maybe.) It has this wood-shingle decor to make you think you are out in the country, but Chow, Baby wasn’t fooled. Worst of all, it dosen’t smell like barbeque from the parking lot, or even when you walk in.

Baby-back ribs (half order $8.95) got all their flavor from the Tennessee-style sweet tamato-based sauce, with none of the PR promised “rich hickory smoke flavor,” but they were edible. Same for the heat-lamped pulled pork (plate $7.95): no flavor except from the sauce; edible. The only hickory kick on the plate was in the sweet baked beans, and Chow, Baby suspects that came out of a bottle, too. Mac-and-cheese was fast-food perfect: rich, faux-cheesy, very filling, but that plate was brought down by parched brisket and supposedly smoked turkey (combo plate $12.95). You’d have to be really desperate, or really drunk to hit on this Cutie.